DVD Review: Sleep Dealer
Sleep Dealer (2008)
Studio: Maya Ent.
Release Date: September 8, 2009
Directed By: Alex Rivera.
Cast: Luis Fernando Pena, Leonor Varela & Jacob Vargas.
Review By: Annie Riordan
Cheap Mexican Labor: it’s the American Dream. And in a not-too-distant mechanized future, immigrants no longer have to slip across the border to find good American jobs. In fact, they can’t. The closed borders are controlled by retinal scans and machine gun-armed robots, making immigration impossible. Instead, destitute Mexicans hit the streets of Tijuana in search of cheap “node jobs”, a process which allows a human to “hook up” to the virtual world.
Forced to flee his small village after his hacking hobby results in the execution of his father, young Memo is in need of a node job to support his family. It’s a classic tale of boy meets girl, girl gives boy a node job he’ll never forget, and boy goes to work in a Sleep Dealer” – a factory so nicknamed because the grueling twelve hour shifts drain the life force from the “hooked up” employees. Plugged into a virtual reality, Mexican laborers build skyscrapers, drive taxis, even babysit children through remote robots hundreds of miles away. Memo is proud to be able to send his hard-earned money home to his brother and mother, and is reasonably happy in his new life. He even finds love with the node job girl, an aspiring writer named Luz who gets paid to upload her memories.
But when she starts uploading her memories of Memo, the assassin who was ordered to kill his father begins homing in on him. Can the unlikely threesome find a way to overthrow the machines and turn a grievous wrong into a victory for humanity?
Calling this movie the Mexican Matrix isn’t entirely inaccurate. The similarities are obvious and don’t stop with the Memo/Neo thing. With a pinch of Open Your Eyes thrown into the mix, Sleep Dealer treads familiar ground and doesn’t really go where no Spanish sci-fi film has ever gone before. However, one shouldn’t go into this movie expecting a thrill-laden, special effects filled fun ride. Sleep Dealer is very much a drama first and foremost. The futuristic stuff serves more as a backdrop for a simple tale of humanity and the struggle not to lose one’s soul in an increasingly soulless world. Wow, who knew I could wax so philosophic at this early hour of the morning? Welcome to How Profound Can We Be!
That said, the movie has a great time with visual puns (Live Node Girls!), and creates a believably grim look at one possible future. The computer effects are a tad on the queso-side and look more like WarGames graphics than The Matrix, but as they are merely cast in a supporting role here, it really doesn’t matter. A simple, but strong story, and good performances hold this one up and make it worth a look.
Brutal As Hell Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
